Avoiding Deleted Scene

I’m so excited to release this never before seen deleted scene from the Avoiding series. I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment after you’ve read, and I’ll pick one lucky winner to to win a signed copy of Avoiding Commitment.

Lexi crouched in the darkened interior of Bridges Enterprise. The lights were flickering down the hallway, casting an eerie glow that radiated to where she was camped out under a desk. Her heart beat rapid fire in her chest, and she was worried they could hear the loud thrum.

She didn’t know long she had been stuck in here. It could have been hours or just days. Her stomach grumbled, but there wasn’t much viable food around that they hadn’t eaten. She needed to get out of the city. The CDC had warned them, but she had thought they would all get out together. She had really believed them when they said they could put aside their differences in this state of emergency so they would all be saved.

But no.

Even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, Jack and Ramsey were still fighting for her. Just now for her…BRAINSSSSS.

***

Two Weeks Earlier

“Evacuate the city.”

Those were the words that changed everything. Some super virus had been set loose in Atlanta. The military was quarantining the city, and everyone was streaming out to the countryside like locusts. The Bridges had immediately set to work locking down their facilities and airlifting employees away from the deadly heart of the metropolis.

Lexi stood in a tight circle waiting for her turn on the helicopter. Bekah and Parker stood together chattering like high school girls in gym class. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world. When all of Lexi’s heart went out to the two people missing. Jack and Ramsey.

“Where the hell are they?” Lexi asked. “They were supposed to be here all ready.”

“They just had to get one thing,” Bekah said. She watched her parents climb onto the helicopter.

“How could you let them go in this?

I knew you were psychotic but allowing your brother and husband to leave in the middle of the worst scientific catastrophe of our lifetime, maybe any lifetime, is horrible…even for you.”

“How exactly was I going to stop them?” she asked, cold and deadly. “Don’t think for one second that you are the only person who cares for them. We’re all freaked out.”

Lexi didn’t even have the energy to argue. She was too anxious.

“Honey, that’s all we can fit on this trip,” Bekah’s father said. “We’re leaving the two military men with you just in case, and then we’ll be back with another helicopter as soon as we can.”

“You’re just leaving me here?” she shrieked. “You can’t leave us all here.”

“We will be back in a half hour. If we take anymore people on, we won’t make it out of the city.”

“I’m your only daughter. How can you do this to me?”

“Ma’am, please step back,” the military man said, pushing her away from the helicopter.

They watched it fly off into the afternoon sun. Bekah was shaking. “What if they never come back? What if we’re trapped here?”

“Keep it together,” Lexi said. “We’ll wait an hour and if they’re not back then we’ll find somewhere safe to stay until the morning.

***

Footsteps.

She could hear them somewhere on this level. They were getting closer. She knew she didn’t have much time left if she had any hope of escaping this insanity. The only thing she didn’t understand was why the helicopter had never returned to pick them up. Maybe all of this could have been forestalled if the helicopter had come back for them that night.

Had something happened to the Bridges? Or were they selfishly in the countryside set to live out the rest of their lives without their children. Heartless people abandoning the ones they loved. In this new world, there only seemed to be one rule.

Parker sighed. “We’ve had this conversation over and over again. There is nowhere else for us to go. Her parents never came back. There have been no planes flying over in the airspace. We have two guards, and so far have encountered no fighting. We’ll just have to stay here until the food runs out.”

“And what about Jack and Ramsey? Neither of you want to go out and look for them?”

“I think we all know what happened to them,” Parker said quietly.

“Well, I can’t stand around and wait for them to just get eaten. We should go and try to find them.”

A commotion on the other side of the door stilled their conversation. All the girls froze. “Oh no,” Bekah whispered.

Gunfire rang out, and the fight seemed to intensify. Lexi heard two loud thumps and that jolted her.

“Go,” she cried, breaking for the door to the other room. “We have to get out of here.”

“They could have won though,” Bekah said.

Lexi was already through the other door, when the front one burst in and Jack and Ramsey filed into the house. It was them…and it wasn’t them.

Ramsey was still tall, blonde, bulky, and utterly gorgeous. Jack still had that natural confident gait, stunning blue eyes, and cocky smile. But it was all twisted and wrong at the same time.

Her heart dropped. No. They had turned.

The last thing she saw as she raced away from the two people she had ever loved was their them grabbing Bekah and Parker.

Then came the screams.

***

“I know you’re here,” Ramsey’s voice carried down the hallway.

Lexi stopped breathing entirely. He couldn’t really know, could he?

After that close call when she had been with Bekah and Parker, Lexi had been on the run trying to dodge the guys as much as she could. She hadn’t even liked Bekah and Parker, but she hadn’t thought that they deserved to be eaten by zombies.

And even though there were still plenty of likely victims for Jack and Ramsey to try to get, they still both came for her. In life and death, they were both completely obsessed with her.

“Back off, Ramsey,” she heard Jack call from the other end of the hallway. “I had her first.”

“That’s always your argument. But it doesn’t work that way.”

If they kept this up, Lexi was just going to let them kill each other and then slip out the back. She had wanted to save them, but she knew it was futile at this point. No one was going to find a cure for the disease before she got out of the city. And she couldn’t risk them destroying the rest of the world trying to get to her. She had to make a choice.

Just as Lexi was about to stand, a team of military men stormed the building. She screamed at the top of her lungs as gunfire ricocheted off the walls. Jack and Ramsey had just made it to her hiding spot. She backed away fiercely. They were both bleeding out of their wounds, but still coming for her.

“Lexi, I love you. I always have,” Jack said before a bullet caught him in the skull and he collapsed at her feet.

Tears streamed down her face. “Jack.”

“Now we can be together forever,” Ramsey said. He reached for her, and she stumbled backward.

“No. Stay back.”

“Even now. You choose him?”

“I choose life.”

“I love you,” Ramsey said, reaching for her once more.

A bullet slammed him away from her and she screamed. “No, no, no, no,” she cried. This was not how it was supposed to end. Where was her happily ever after? The zombie apocalypse was a cruel, cruel joke. She had lost them both after all.

“All clear,” a man said as he strolled down the hallway. “Are you Miss Walsh?”

“Ye-yes.” She was shaking from head to toe.

“I’m to take you out of Atlanta. Let’s go.”

“But how did you even know I was here?”

He smiled. “There’s someone waiting for you upstairs. She was most insistent that you be rescued. We’ve had our team scouring for you the past week.”

Lexi stared down at the dead lifeless bodies of the only two men she had loved her whole life. She let a tear fall for each other them. There was nothing more she could do. She had lost so much in a short period of time, and she knew she would mourn their death for years to come. But first she had to get out of the war zone and to safety. They would have wanted that.

She followed the man up the stairs to where a helicopter was waiting on the top of the building. A team of military personnel surrounded the chopper. And inside stood her beautiful friend drinking fucking champagne out of a flute.

“Chyna.”

Lexi hopped into the helicopter next to her and was offered a drink.

“How’s that for closure?” Chyna asked before they were lifted out of Atlanta.

***

Thank you for reading this Avoiding short: Avoiding Zombies! I hope you enjoyed my April Fool’s Day story! Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments!

Oh my God! That was so exciting I can't believe it was deleted!!! If this was a deleted scene the book must be soooo good!!! I can't wait to get my hands on it! If I could wrap my brain around it's total excitement … but it's been eaten! That was fun!